12/28/2006

I can't believe that it's been eight years since we traveled to Houston for Rutgers' first bowl victory over Kansas State in the Texas Bowl. It's fresh in my mind tonight as I'm watching Arkansas and Texas play this year's installment at Reliant Stadium.

Here's the Houston Chronicle I picked up at the airport the morning after:

Kyle Flood's Post-Bowl Press Conference

This is what a happy coach looks like:


And here are a very happy Chris Carlin and Ray Lucas summarizing the 40-21 win over the Tar Heels:

"You could put that in your pipe and smoke it." --Ray Lucas sums up Rutgers Football's 8-win first B1G season in 2014.

ASDSADADADASFA SADFGFGFDSGFDGFDGFD!!!

If you want to know what that means, you'll have to ask ESPN:

Seems ESPN used their ace graphics team as well as first-string announcers today: RT @StevePoliti Seems about right. pic.twitter.com/dvucj6WhWo
— Beat Visitor (@BeatVisitor) December 27, 2014

Despite the third-string ESPN announcers and the mostly empty Ford Field (why wouldn't people want to travel to Detroit on Christmas?), the Scarlet Knights had a great 40-21 win over the North Carolina Tar Heels today. The game wasn't as close as the score would lead you to believe, with Rutgers dominating on both sides of the ball for almost all game until late in the fourth quarter when UNC recovered two onside kicks and made things look interesting for a few minutes.

Freshman running backs Josh Hicks (202 yards, 1 TD) and Robert Martin (100 yards, 2 TD) made 2015 look very bright, but 2014 -- finishing at 8-5 with a convincing bowl win against an ACC opponent -- didn't look too bad either.

ASDSADADADASFA SADFGFGFDSGFDGFDGFD indeed!

The last Keep-Calm-And-Chop poster of 2014

It's time to #ChopUNC on the day after Christmas in Detroit to bring this first Big Ten season to a fitting end.

Full House

I hope this crowd looked as good on television as it did from the stands at the beginning of the 4th quarter (with the Irish only leading by 3).

Football Weather at R House North

The Beat Visitor Bowl Poll

Please vote in the sidebar poll I've just added to the right, and which will be live until December 28th.

I have a strong feeling about this question, but I'd love to see how some of the Scarlet Knights' other fans feel about the importance of the Pinstripe Bowl to their final evaluation of this strange gap year in the Double-A C conference.

Will a win over Notre Dame in the Bronx make the 2013 Rutgers football season a total success, a partial success, or something much less?

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Post-Game Update 12/29/13:
Well, we didn't beat the golden domers in Yankee Stadium yesterday, but here's a snapshot of the results of the (now meaningless) poll before I remove it from the sidebar:

Have you ordered your tickets for December 28th yet?

One quote sums up Rutgers' loss in last night's Orlando Bowl

“Gary is our starting quarterback. He is the guy that has earned the job and earned the right to be in the game, and certainly nothing I saw from him made me feel like I should make any change.” -- Rutgers Coach Kyle Flood on Quarterback Gary Nova

Was Kyle Flood watching a different game? Gary Nova looked scared, was throwing off his back foot all night, and should have thrown six interceptions rather than one -- if the Virginia Tech defensive backs had any hands.

Wasn't Kyle Flood on the sideline during last year's Pinstripe Bowl during which Greg Schiano's switch to Chas Dodd helped lead to a victory over Iowa State? (I would have loved to have heard Greg Schiano's thoughts as he watched from his box in the Citrus Bowl last night.)

I feel very sorry for a defense full of seniors who played a brilliant game against Virginia Tech, scoring a touchdown, holding the Hokies scoreless for three quarters (until a Nova interception set up the first score in the fourth), and keeping them out of the endzone in OT when the Hokies had a first down at the three. Khaseem Greene and crew are a great defense who deserved just a little bit of support on the other side of the ball.

It's officially "The Orlando Bowl" in the BeatVisitor dot com style guide

I'm under no contractual obligation to mention the corporate sponsors of bowl games (or the people putting their corporate name on Rutgers Stadium), so in all future posts about Friday's game, I will use the words "Orlando Bowl" or "The Orlando Bowl", because to call this Friday's game against Virginia Tech the Blockbuster-CarQuest-MicronPC-VisitFlorida-Mazda-ChampsSports-RussellAthletic Bowl is simply too depressing.





Thank God we played in the St. Petersburg Bowl before Mr. Beef O'Brady got his hands on it.

Keep Calm and Chop Virginia Tech

Here it is, the last poster of the 2012 Rutgers football season in honor of the Scarlet Knights' bowl game in Orlando against the Virginia Tech Hokies on December 28th:

You can get an original image at
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-vatech/

Rutgers and Kansas State in the news.

There's an article in the Washington Post this morning, "Long way from dark days, Kansas State and Rutgers surge into position for memorable seasons," about the Scarlet Knights and the Wildcats, their 4-0 starts, and their current national rankings.

The writer of the article dares to look ahead in a way that this writer dares not:

"Rutgers’ next five games line up like this: home against UConn, home against Syracuse, at Temple, home against Kent State and home against Army. It doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to project the Scarlet Knights getting to 9-0, and bringing back memories of 2006 when they went 11-2 and stunningly slipped into the national championship conversation for about a week.
"Can Rutgers and Kansas State stay undefeated heading into November? It won’t take a miracle."

When I see the names of these two schools in one sentence, I think back instead of forward. I think of my first trip to Texas with my son, my first bowl game, and the Scarlet Knights' 37-10 win in the 2006 Texas Bowl. This 46-yard TD run by Ray Rice was only one of many highlights:

See you at Yankee Stadium

I'm on my way.

I just ordered my tickets to the Pinstripe Bowl

Let's make Yankee Stadium a sea of red on December 30th for the Scarlet Knights' bowl game against Iowa State.


Not exactly "The Birthplace of College Football", but it'll do.

I know there was some disappointment after the loss to Connecticut ending the regular season, but no one picked Rutgers to finish 8-4 this year (most "experts" picked us to finish last in the Big East), so let's cheer loudly for dear old R.U. to get their ninth victory of the year over the Iowa State Cyclones.

The Big East Tie-Breaker Formula

So, if Rutgers beats UConn next week, the Scarlet Knights are assured of a share of the Big East championship. The only question will be, how many other champions will there be. Here's the current crop of contenders:

Big East Overall PF PA STRK

Rutgers 4-2 8-3 294 185 W3

Louisville 4-2 6-5 227 206 W1
Cincinnati 3-2 7-3 337 200 L2
West Virginia 3-2 7-3 368 268 W1
Pittsburgh 3-2 5-5 256 228 W1
Connecticut 2-3 4-6 224 235 L1

And here are the tiebreaker instructions:

All references to "rankings" refer to the BCS Poll released after the regular season is completed for all BIG EAST members.

TWO-WAY TIE

The winner of the head to head match-up will represent the BIG EAST in the Bowl Championship Series.

THREE-WAY TIE

A "MINI-CONFERENCE" IS CREATED AMONGST THE THREE TIED TEAMS

Scenario I:

All three teams have either a 6-1 or 5-2 record and have each won one game and lost one game against the other tied teams in the mini-conference. In this case, the highest ranked team amongst the three earns the bid. If two of the three teams are tied for the highest ranking, the bid is earned by the team winning the head-to-head match up.

Scenario II:

All three teams have 5-2 records, and within the mini-conference, Team A is 2-0, Team B is 1-1, and Team C is 0-2. Team A earns bid regardless of ranking.

FOUR-WAY TIE

A "MINI-CONFERENCE" IS CREATED AMONGST THE FOUR TIED TEAMS

Scenario I:

In the mini-conference, Teams A & B are 2-1, and Teams C & D are 1-2. The higher ranked of the 2-1 teams earns the bid. If the 2-1 teams tie for the highest ranking, the bid goes to the team that won the head-to-head match up.

Scenario II:

In the mini-conference, Team A is 3-0, Team B is 2-1, Team C is 1-2, and Team D is 0-3. Team A earns bid regardless of ranking.

So if Rutgers beats UConn and Louisville and West Virginia both lose a third game, it's simple, Rutgers goes to the BCS bowl, because Rutgers won the head-to-head meetings with Pitt and Cincy. But there are a lot of other ties where Rutgers does not win the BCS spot. We can't worry about that yet. We just need to huck the fuskies next week, as they say, and let the chips fall where they may.

Congratulations to the 2009 Kings of the Knights

Now that the Scarlet Knights have won their fourth straight bowl game after having zero previous bowl wins, it's hard to remember what a big deal it was when we sat in Houston and watched Greg Schiano, Brian Leonard, and Ray Rice raise the Texas Bowl trophy above their heads in Reliant Stadium. Congratulations to all the Rutgers football players and coaches for last night's convincing 45-24 victory over the Golden Knights of the University of Central Florida, but especially to the seniors who do not know what it is to not attend a post-season game, and who do not know what it is to lose one (we have to believe that our freshmen, especially Savage and Sanu, will have future years in which we can single them out for special recognition after bowl games).

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We at Beat Visitor dot com would like to point out that we were very restrained in the buildup to last night's game, not even pointing out this very obvious anagrammatic school motto for the UCF Knights pictured to your left. As soon as we saw the the phrase "UCF Knights" in print for the first time, we knew that the first four letters would lead to promising anagrams and it took less than a minute more to come up with the obvious school motto, so obvious that it had to have been as purposeful as French Connection UK and their FCUK shirts. It's a clever play for the University of Central Florida to subliminally attract prospective high school seniors and put their school into the running to take the official #1 party school honor away from West Virginia and Penn State.

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Finally, until the Black Knights of West Point or the Golden Knights of Disney World take it away from us, the Scarlet Knights are the first undisputed Kings of the college football Knights. Where's our crown?

I don't know if I'm more upset about the late bait 'n' switch or the apostrophe abuse in the B'O'B Bowl.

As far as I can tell from my five minutes of arduous internet research, the St. Petersburg Bowl has just officially named itself after a food franchise. I had never heard of this roadside eatery and it doesn't exist in New Jersey or most of the Northeast, but it seems to be extremely popular in the states that are featured in US obesity maps.

The style guide of Beat Visitor dot com assiduously avoids naming any corporate sponsors (e.g., we say Muffler Bowl of Charlotte, Pizza Bowl of Birmingham, etc.), but I feel like I have to mention "Beef 'O' Brady's" by name just this once in order to ask, "What the fuck is going on with the apostrophes and spacing around the O?" If it's the beef restaurant of a man named O'Brady, then there shouldn't be a space after the O'. If it's the slaughtered-cow bistro of a man named Brady and the o' is a contraction of of, then the space between o' and Brady is correct, but I can't think of a single reason (other than illiteracy) for an apostrophe before and after the 'O'. Can someone please enlighten me? (On their website they also use the superfluous plural apostrophe -- "Today there are Beef's [sic] popping up all over the country." -- so I'm going with the initial illiteracy theory until convinced otherwise.)

The full name of this fast-food franchise will never be mentioned again in this blog. Maybe the St. Petersburg Bowl will have to become the B'O'B Bowl, or maybe we can use an anagram of the franchise name and make it the "Obey Bad Refs" Bowl. In any case, it sucks. The only thing that the St. Petersburg Bowl had going for it was that it was not sponsored. To add a cheesy name less than two weeks before the game takes place seems especially sleazy.

Is it too late to switch with USF and go back to the International Bowl?

Is There a Special Award for Becoming King of the Knights?

The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers have already defeated the Black Knights of West Point on the gridiron earlier this fall and now they will have the chance to beat the Golden Knights of University of Central Florida in less than two weeks.
Is this the first time in college football history that a team has had the opportunity to become the undisputed King of the Knights? Is there a special trophy or sword that goes with the honor? Something other than being crowned the football champions of St. Petersburg?
Do they at least have a mounted mascot with whom our Knight can joust on the sidelines?

It's not really a question, is it?

"Which means more to you as a Rutgers fan, winning a fourth straight bowl game or beating West Virginia?"
It's not really a question is it? If you're a true follower of the Scarlet Knights, beating the Mountaineers has to mean more to you than beating an ACC or C-USA or MAC team, but maybe I'll add it to the sidebar as my question of the week anyway just to see if I'm wrong.Yesterday I was out of state for the holidays and didn't catch a single second of Rutgers sports news on Thursday or Friday. So what happened over those two days?

• The football team beat Louisville 34-14 and put the final nail into Steve Kragthorpe's coffin on Friday morning and afternoon.
  
• The men's basketball team beat UMass yesterday 83-75.
  
• The women's basketball team beat Southern Cal by 66-51 on Thursday and Mississippi State by 62-54 yesterday.
  

So, should I continue to help the success of the Scarlet Knights by ignoring them? Should I keep my eyes closed while sitting on my bench at the Stadium next Saturday at noon?

Why the Huskies need to massacre the Leprechauns on Saturday

In his most recent prediction of the 34 2009-2010 bowl matchups, Stewart Mandel presents the possibility of this outrage, a mediocre Notre Dame stealing the 2nd Big East bowl slot in the Gator Bowl on New Year's Day. The "other" Big East teams are allocated to the following bowls:

• Pittsburgh as Big East champs in the Sugar Bowl against Florida.
• Cincinnati as the "3rd place" Big East team in the Muffler Repair Shop Bowl against North Carolina.
• West Virginia in the Pizza Bowl of Birmingham against South Carolina.
• Rutgers in the St. Petersburg Bowl against Southern Miss.
• USF in the International Bowl against Temple.
• UConn in the Pizza Bowl of Detroit against Central Michigan (because the Big Ten won't have enough bowl-eligible teams for all their bowl slots).

As much fun as it would be to see Notre Dame lose to Virginia Tech by five touchdowns in the Gator Bowl, I'd much rather see that bowl slot go to a worthier Big East team, and see the Dames blown out by the University of Connecticut this weekend. I hope the Huskies' football players get a cathartic release of every bit of frustration they have felt in this season's close losses to Pitt, UNC, Rutgers, and Cincinnati.